The Assistant Minister for Defence, The Hon Andrew Hastie MP, released the Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre's (ASD’s ACSC) Annual Cyber Threat Report 2020-21.
This is the ASD’s ACSC's second annual threat report and was produced in collaboration with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and the Australian Federal Police.
The Annual Cyber Threat Report contains an overview of the key cyber threats affecting Australia and provides vital advice on how all Australians and Australian organisations can help protect themselves online.
Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, Ms Abigail Bradshaw CSC, said malicious cyber actors are actively targeting Australians.
“As we shifted online to go school work or work from home or buy things, or keep communicating, the criminals have also shifted and really prosecuted our online lives to make money or steal our information,” Ms Bradshaw said.
“This report, while it's packed with data, is also packed with really practical advice for Aussies. It's really a call to Aussies that as you shift your life online, try and spend some time also lifting your cyber security resilience and making yourself a hard target for those criminals.
“There's some basic steps that we want all Aussies to do, like using complex passphrases and using multifactor authentication whenever you can. ‘Password 123’ is not a great password. Try something like ‘endless-fun-in-facemasks’, or ‘home schooling rocks’, and changing some of those characters. And most importantly, take a close look at when updates are available on your phone or smart device. Never push update later. Always push update now.”
The ASD's ACSC urges all Australian individuals and organisations to report cybercrime and cyber incidents to ReportCyber.
Every cybercrime report helps not only the victim, but also goes to help the ASD's ACSC develop knowledge of the cyber threat picture and enables the ASD's ACSC to produce the best possible advice for all Australians.
The ASD's ACSC is contactable 24/7 via the Contact page or by calling the Australian Cyber Security Hotline on 1300 CYBER1 (1300 292 371).
See Assistant Minister Hastie’s announcement.